Anya gave me permission to post this video. It's a
project for one of her classes. She had to string together into a movie
a bunch of random video clips and beats. We decided it'd be great to have Amia
watch the clips and just record her talking about. So here is Amia
talking about these video clips, with Anya's expert sound and video
editing.

Two kinda cool things. One is Senuti a free program that lets you transfer music from your iPod to your computer. Very helpful. I had a bunch of music on my iPod after our first laptop died and didn't know what do with it. Now I have access to it again and don't have to keep it on my iPod forever.

Also, I just saw this Henry Rollins spoken word video, Live at Luna Park, which was a good time. But the real treasure is an extra feature on the DVD, a 20 minute story about a rivalry Rollins had going with Iggy Pop. Rollins, for years, tried to show up Pop on stage since he's one of Rollins' heroes. So just the way he tells about his preparations and the descriptions of Pop's performances is priceless. I watched it many many times, both for the story itself but also for the way he tells it. I think Rollins is really mastering the art of storytelling, with great turns of phrase, physical gestures, sound effects, timing, and a lot of heart. It's a great thing to watch someone fulfil their calling, which came through particularly clearly with this story.

It's wierd now when people ask how things are going. Pre-Amia Suzanne and I travelled a lot pretty regularly, and we were always doing new things. When people asked what was new there was always a lot new to talk about. And before we got married I think I used to travel even more (it's hard to remember--feels like a different life now). But now, there's not much new. We don't travel as much, not yet anyway. And we don't really go out at night since we try to have Amia in bed by 8 or 9. We don't go to dinner, coffee, movies, or bookstores. In that sense there's not much new. But in another sense everything is new everyday.

Amia's always learning something new. Sometimes it's big stuff, like right now she's getting to be a pro at potty training. And sometimes it's little stuff, like this new word she created--'poontsing'. We're not sure what it means exactly. She'll run up to us and grab our neck/back/leg, hang, and say, "I'm just poontsing you!" (maybe we should have a Balderdash contest to see what the best definition is).

And internally, for Suzanne and I too, there's always something new. You're always having to reach down deep inside yourself and pull out something new as a parent. Whether it's patience, a new measure of love, ovecoming your own fears and insecurities, or having the courage to dream something new for your child. But it's hard to summarize that as a conversation opener.

That's also why I haven't been blogging so much lately. Partly because I'm exhuasted at the end of each day, but also because there's also this stuff kind of below the surface that's swirling and mixing and I rarely have a chance to reflect on it, even just by myself.

Long time readers will remember that some time ago Anya submitted a pic of Amia to a Jones Soda contest being held at her Panera. We've finally got the results! See below. She'll be on two flavors, but only on Jones Soda bottles sold in Panera.

And the letter we got from Jones soda...

And to close, a funny little story (not the Maneater one yet, Alison! I should totally post that, I'm just too tired right now:)

After being at a conference all last week I've been pretty exhausted, and to boot Amia's sleep schedule has been off. So last night I was reading a story to her at 11pm, as part of her bedtime ritual. Between pages I was falling asleep and actually dreaming, to be awakened by Amia thumping my chest to wake me up. One of the dreams involved identifying rats for some reason (these were only 3 second dreams so there wasn't a lot of backstory), so when I felt the little thumping I woke up, looked at the book we were reading about a mama bear trying to put her baby bear to sleep, and said, before I knew what I was saying, "...and that's how they found out where the rats came from." Amia just turned the page without skipping a beat, which set me to laughing. Five minutes later Amia was asleep.